logocultism (writing)

The experience of contemporary education in graphic design can often feel like a “Logo Cult,” that is to say that we are taught from a perspective of client based work being the supreme form of design. When in my undergraduate education, focus was placed on each designer's role in the corporate setting.

We were shown examples of the many different studios or agencies creating bright, flashy and vibrant work. Nearly every single studio introduced focused either on freelance client jobs or creating for large name brands both local and international.

Something that always felt off to me was the lack of mention or even perspective towards “real world designers”, those who worked in company structures doing daily jobs such as creating infographics, or those who used their degrees to create endless pamphlets and signage for the corporation they received minimal pay from.

It makes perfect sense to me why most Professors in academia would not like to mention this lifestyle. It wasn’t glamorous, it didn’t support the “American Dream” of stardom, success, and high salaries that many young students enter the field expecting with complete naiveté. 

Instead, we completely ignored the fact that nearly every student in an average class will end up at those boring corporate jobs, if they are even able to find an in-industry job at all. 

It seems most modern academic settings view a students ability in corporate branding as a measure of their value to the field, it is given utmost importance. Classes focus on branding on various different levels: Branding of the self, corporate identity, packaging, and often even more.

We throw out other forms of design careers, cutting off the “fat” in an attempt to bring students up to date in the real world of design. Who dictates what the real world of design even looks like, especially when it is based on the singular individual experience of one teacher? 

When this “real world of design” on offer too often leaves many feeling lost and confused when entering a field completely foreign to their four years of education?

No, instead we are indoctrinated into the Logo Cult.

One day, I was sitting in the corner of the graphic design lab at my university, which I worked for as a monitor to keep the lab clean and open. The lab itself was a small room with a handful of macs, some various printers, and a few cutting workstations. It was decorated with past student work in the form of posters, branding, stickers, etc.

A few students from my cohort came in to work on their books for our publication class, which required that we physically build the books we designed from scratch. Many would complain why we had to do this, citing that the modern design world would never require this level of craftsmanship. 

There was validity in this claim, as most professionally done books would usually be printed at a print shop in bulk order. However, there was also legitimate use of being capable of creating your own prototypes, not to mention the practicality of expanding our abilities and having a new skill at our disposal.

While having a conversation about the class with them, the topic of whether publication design is even useful also came up. One student remarked that her ability to create book layouts was unnecessary, as she would be a logo designer anyways. That meant it didn’t matter if she wasn’t great at making books as long as she could create good logos. Many agreed with this sentiment, viewing publication design as more of a “niche” within the profession.

At the time I found it strange that there was such a pushback against publication, but I always had a bias towards creating books and layouts myself. The irony, however, is that many of those cohorts now work in corporate design fields, and engage with brand guidelines without any say in the branding itself.

There are many other occasions where I’ve had similar experiences of a general denial of design outside of brand identity. It seemed that many undergraduates were entirely convinced that the role of the designer was simply to create brands, and all other forms of design were to support the creation of brand identity.

Typography, for example, was emphasised in many classes. With rigid rules and examples of “good and bad” forms of type. Although the beginnings of typography focused on posters and forms of expression, it seemed type was taught as a means to the end of creating support for a logo or brand identity.

This couldn’t have been more obvious at the end of our undergraduate education curriculum when we arrived at Practicum, where we emulated design studio culture and took on pro bono work in small teams with rigid structures. We used corporate management tools similar to Monday.com, and assigned roles such as “team lead, creative director, and communications manager.”

Playing house like this continued to affirm what the role of designer was in education. Almost every client who flies through the beehive looks for brand work, often because of the fact that it is free which leads them to take the cheap route for the sake of “helping kids.” 

I think the funniest part is that even when working for clients, the teacher gets final say on what designs go through to the client, not even managing to escape the personal aesthetics of the classroom. It becomes a parody of itself, playing out a stage play of idealized client work with a complete disassociation from “real world design.”

If a designer felt as if they wanted to branch out and develop further skills after graduating, perhaps it was because they felt their portfolio was lacking in meaningful projects because of the abundance of rushed projects in undergrad.

So then the designer could turn to online classes and digital platforms such as skillshare and youtube, which a quick search returns results such as Logo Design with Draplin: Secrets of Shape, Type and Color by Aaron Draplin, or the latest video from popular design centered youtube channel “The Futur” ran by Chris Do, Why Most Creatives Will Fail in 2025 (Unless They Learn This) alongside their other videos such as Want YOUR Logo to Stand Out? Watch This Now!

The Logo Cult is all around us, slowly but surely it has taken over every mainstream aspect of our field.

Frankly, I don’t believe the field consigning itself to becoming a factory for the tools of corporate propaganda is really a good look. Why is it that most students aren’t allowed to flesh out or explore their personal journey as an artist until they reach the graduate level? 

Do we really fail to trust young adults with information beyond the rigid conformities of a formal education in graphic design? Why is it the first mention of “place” happens in the graduate level, rather than at the origin point of a new artist's story?

I’ve tackled the idea of whether creativity is dead before, but perhaps the invention of the word creativity itself could have marked the concept for doom. When we’ve distilled our ability and consciousness towards the arts down to skills and attributes to be harvested for personal gain, maybe the rise of the logo cult was inevitable.

Furthering the removal of freedom in education subconsciously, we are actively failing the students who enter our classrooms. As educators, it is our responsibility to show students the joys and fulfillments of the field we teach, and our role in it. However, it is also our responsibility to prepare them for the reality in which they have decided to place their careers. 

It is of utmost importance that we are transparent to them about the failures or problems with design, to show them the branching paths of the career, and to prepare them with the tools to step out into this world with confidence.

We need to correct the way that we teach from a logocultist -centered perspective, the same as we must avoid the eurocentric canons of design history. 

Logocultism is becoming a canon in and of itself.